Catholic Position
¶1250 Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin,
children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from
the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the
children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness
of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism.
The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of
becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after
birth.
¶1252 The practice of infant Baptism is an immemorial tradition of the
Church. There is explicit testimony to this practice from the
second century on, and it is quite possible that, from the beginning of
the apostolic preaching, when whole “households” received baptism,
infants may also have been baptized.
Scripture Says
Acts 8:36-37
36 …what doth hinder me to be baptized?
37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.
Acts 2:41
41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized:
Acts 18:8
8 And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the
Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed,
and were baptized.
Commentary
- Not one example of infant baptism is to be found in the scriptures.
- Alway the baptismal candidate is a believer prior to baptism.